US8495163B2 - Method and apparatus for a publish-subscribe system with templates for role-based view of subscriptions - Google Patents

Abstract

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for notifying one or more users of information, where the information has a plurality of attributes. A plurality of subscribable objects are provided to one or more of the users, where each of the subscribable objects comprises one or more of the plurality of attributes as required attributes and zero or more of the attributes as optional attributes. Subscription requests are received from one or more of the users based on at least one of the subscribable objects. The plurality of subscribable objects are based, for example, on a set of predefined templates. The predefined templates identify each of the plurality of attributes as a required attribute or an optional attribute. Each of the attributes is presented to a user using a display format selected based on a cardinality of the corresponding attribute. For example, the display format for a given attribute may comprise one or more of a user entry, a scrollable list and a check box.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/554,232, filed Mar. 18, 2004, and is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/184,236, filed Jun. 26, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Notification and Response;” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/184,325, filed Jun. 26, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Notification and Response Based on Communication Flow Expressions,” each incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to communication methods and systems, and more particularly, to methods and systems that notify one or more users of information.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Several technologies are available to notify users of events or new information. Typically, these technologies are based on email lists, bulletin boards, publish-subscribe systems, database triggers and filtering systems. A core issue in all of these systems is how the message to be sent is matched with interested subscribers. Email distribution lists and bulletin boards, for example, provide a fixed taxonomy of topics of interest. People subscribe to receive notifications for one or more topics by joining the email list or the bulletin board on that topic.

Publish-subscribe systems are also often organized with fixed taxonomies of topics. These systems are sometimes called topic-based (or type-based) publish-subscribe systems in the literature. Another category of publish-subscribe system is called the content-based publish-subscribe system. In these systems, attribute-value pairs in the message published are matched against user-specified constraints that are conjunctions of relational expressions over some of the attribute-value pairs (for example, item=car and price<$10,000) or, more generally selection queries in a normal form such as conjunctive normal form (for example, ((item=car) or (item=motorcycle)) and (price<$10,000)).

While such publish-subscribe systems provide an effective mechanism for notifying users of events or new information, they suffer from a number of limitations which, if overcome could make such publish-subscribe systems better suited for enterprise applications. For example, while some fee-based publish-subscribe systems are motivated to ensure that only authorized users are notified, they do not contain access control mechanisms that protect the content of the notifications. A need therefore exists for improved methods and apparatus that make such publish-subscribe systems suitable for use by enterprise applications. A further need exists for publish-subscribe methods and systems that provide improved security. Yet another need exists for publish-subscribe methods and systems that provide improved efficiency for enterprise users.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Generally, methods and apparatus are provided for notifying one or more users of information, where the information has a plurality of attributes. A plurality of subscribable objects are provided to one or more of the users, where each of the subscribable objects comprises one or more of the plurality of attributes as required attributes and zero or more of the attributes as optional attributes. Subscription requests are received from one or more of the users based on at least one of the subscribable objects. The plurality of subscribable objects are based, for example, on a set of predefined templates. The predefined templates identify each of the plurality of attributes as a required attribute or an optional attribute. In this manner, the predefined templates allow users to view the information based an associated user role.

According to another aspect of the invention, each of the attributes is presented to a user using a display format selected based on a cardinality of the corresponding attribute. For example, the display format for a given attribute may comprise one or more of a user entry, a scrollable list and a check box.

A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the present invention, will be obtained by reference to the following detailed description and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a network environment in which the present invention can operate;

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary notification and response system ofFIG. 1 in further detail;

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram illustrating an exemplary implementation of the subscription server ofFIG. 1 in further detail;

FIG. 4 illustrates the processing of notification and responses by the notification and response system in further detail;

FIG. 5 illustrates the types of privileges enforced by the subscription server ofFIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user database;

FIG. 7 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user roles database that shows role membership of the users and roles;

FIG. 8 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary privileges database that lists a number of the exemplary privileges supported by the subscription server;

FIG. 9 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user privileges database that shows the privileges for users and roles;

FIG. 10 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user-user privileges database that shows the privileges of users and roles that apply to another user or an application;

FIG. 11 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary attributes database that lists the attributes of the hospital application;

FIG. 12 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary attribute values database that lists some possible values for the attributes ofFIG. 11;

FIG. 12 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary subscribable objects database for an exemplary hospital application;

FIG. 14 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user-object privileges database that shows the privileges of users and roles that apply to subscribable objects;

FIG. 15 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary attribute template database incorporating features of the present invention;

FIG. 16 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary subscription table;

FIG. 17 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a request creation process, implemented by one or more applications to create notification requests;

FIG. 18 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a subscription processing routine, implemented by the subscription server ofFIG. 3;

FIG. 19 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a matching process that identifies those subscriptions with subscribable objects;

FIG. 20 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a matching process that employs a first approach to identify those subscriptions with no subscribable objects;

FIG. 21 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a matching process that employs a second approach to identify those subscriptions with no subscribable objects;

FIG. 22 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a communication flow generation process implemented by the subscription server ofFIG. 3;

FIG. 23 illustrates an exemplary user interface that allows a user to review one or more pending requests;

FIG. 24 illustrates an exemplary user interface that allows a user to enter, update or otherwise access subscriptions;

FIG. 25 illustrates an exemplary user interface that allows users to view, update or delete their notification profiles;

FIG. 26 illustrates an exemplary user interface that allows users to enter a new notification profile;

FIG. 27 illustrates an exemplary user interface that allows a user to subscribe to notifications; and

FIG. 28 illustrates an exemplary user interface that presents a list of subscriptions to the corresponding user.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates a network environment100 in which the present invention can operate. As shown inFIG. 1, one or more applications110-1 through110-N (hereinafter, collectively referred to as applications110) provide notification requests to asubscription server300, discussed below in conjunction withFIG. 3. As discussed hereinafter, the notification requests contain information that theapplications110 believe may be of interest to one or more users. According to one aspect of the invention, the subscribers have registered their interests with thesubscription server300 in the form of subscriptions recorded in asubscription database150. In one exemplary implementation, the users provide their subscriptions to thesubscription server300 using aself subscription portal170. Theself subscription portal170 enables users to create, modify, and delete subscriptions. Given the notification requests from theapplications110 and the subscriptions recorded in thesubscription database150, thesubscription server300 can perform a matching process to identify those users that should be notified of given information.

According to another aspect of the invention, thesubscription server300 employs subscribable objects that are specific things of potential interest to users. For example, using subscribable objects,applications110 can specify information of interest based on, e.g., customers or customer locations. A user can subscribe to a subscribable object. For example, a user can subscribe to the subscribable object for a customer to be notified about service requests from that customer.

In addition, subscribable objects can have access controls applied to them, so, for example, the set of users who can subscribe to a specific customer can be restricted. Privileges specify what a user or role can do. Privileges can apply with respect to a specific person or object, or they can apply more generally. For example, an application may have the privilege to notify a specific user, or it may be able to notify any user. Privileges can include the ability of a person or role to subscribe to a subscribable object or to an application.

In this manner, the portal170 can perform an initial access control when a user attempts to register a subscription to ensure that the user has the appropriate privileges required for the subscription. In addition, according to another aspect of the invention, the portal170 ensures that a user only sees objects during the registration process that the user is authorized to view. In addition, thesubscription server300 can perform a secondary check at run time to ensure that the users associated with matching subscriptions are authorized to receive the notifications.

According to yet another aspect of the invention, thesubscription server300 identifies the users having subscriptions that match the notification requests and provides a list of the matching users to a third party application, such as a notification andresponse system200, discussed below in conjunction withFIG. 2, that will actually notify the users. In one exemplary implementation, thesubscription server300 generates a communication flow (“commflow”) expression for the request that specifies who to contact (i.e., those users having subscriptions that match the request), under what conditions to contact (“only if Ann said yes”) and when to contact (“between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays”). Recipients specify rules for refining communication flow expressions with details of how, i.e., which devices to use, and when to contact them. Recipients may also automatically delegate some requests to other recipients. The communication flow expression is provided to the notification andresponse system200 with the notification request that includes the content for the notification.

Subscriptions provide a mechanism for specifying in advance the application-specific events about which a user will be notified. Subscriptions enableapplications110 to create notification requests without having to generate a communication flow or explicitly identify the users to notify. Instead, thesubscription server300 uses subscription information to preprocess the request, identifying the users to notify and generating a communication flow. After this preprocessing, the notification andresponse system200 executes the communication flow. Furthermore, subscriptions provide an easy way for users to define the conditions under which they want to be notified (self subscription). Users can also define the conditions under which other users are to be notified (automatic subscription).

As discussed more fully below, a subscription may be created based on (i) subscribable objects that represent characteristics of a request to which a user can subscribe, e.g., a customer or customer location; (ii) zero or more attribute values that specify the values of request attributes that match a user's subscription; and (iii) optional rules that specify further conditions to be met for a request to match a user's subscription. A subscription could include any combination of mechanisms, e.g., a subscribable object and a rule. A rule could contain a condition, or it could refer to a general rule. A general rule contains a condition that can be reused in multiple subscriptions, and can be a subscribable object. Each subscription has an owner and a subscriber, and may also have a delegate. The owner is typically the creator of the subscription, while the subscriber is the primary user to be notified. The delegate is a second or alternate user to be notified, when specified. For a notification to match a subscription, it must match at least one subscribable object of the subscription. It also must match at least one value of each attribute specified on the subscription, and it must satisfy all of the subscription's rules.

Generally, theapplications110 provide notification requests to thesubscription server300 when they have information to publish (that may be of interest to one or more subscribers), in a manner described below in conjunction withFIG. 17. Thereafter, thesubscription server300 processes the notification requests and returns a status indication and request identifier to the associatedapplication110. Theapplication110 can use the request identifier, for example, to process, update, delete or evaluate the status of the request. In addition, if responses are received by theapplication110, the request identifier can be used to associate the received responses to the request.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary notification andresponse system200. The exemplary notification andresponse system200 may be embodied, for example, as the Xui™ notification and response system, commercially available from Avaya, Inc. of Basking Ridge, N.J. and as described, for example, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/184,236, filed Jun. 26, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Notification and Response;” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/184,325, filed Jun. 26, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Notification and Response Based on Communication Flow Expressions,” each incorporated by reference herein.

Generally, as shown inFIG. 2, the notification andresponse system200 enables one or more applications110-1 through110-N to communicate with one or more recipients220-1 through220-N, hereinafter, collectively referred to asrecipients220, by a number of different media, such as electronic mail, telephone, web page, pager or facsimile. Generally, the notification and response system100 (i) sends requests to one ormore recipients220, using the medium specified by each individual recipient220 (and recorded for example, in a recipient preference and role database210); (ii) collects and processes responses; and (iii) forwards the responses to their final destination by means of the medium specified by the final destination. Roles provide a way of categorizing users and what they are allowed to do. The recipient preference androle database210 also allows roles that are specified in a communication flow to be resolved to individual recipient names at the time the requests are transmitted.

Theapplications110 create notification requests and submit them to the notification andresponse system200. The notification requests must contain a communication flow to execute. Once the notification andresponse system200 receives a notification request, the notification andresponse system200 executes the communication flow logic to notify therecipients220 and collect their responses. Generally, subscriptions specify criteria for deciding whether a user should be included in the communication flow for a request. A subscription belongs to a user and is specific to an application.

As discussed further below, the separation of the notification functionality provided by the notification andresponse system200 from the subscription processing functionality provided by thesubscription server300, according to another aspect of the invention, allows thesubscription server300 to handle issues like scalability, security and access controls, and availability.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram illustrating an exemplary implementation of thesubscription server300 ofFIG. 1. As shown inFIG. 3, thesubscription server300 includes a computer system that interacts withmedia350. Thesubscription server300 comprises aprocessor320, anetwork interface325, amemory330, anoptional media interface335 and anoptional display340.Network interface325 allows thesubscription server300 to connect to a network, whilemedia interface335 allows thesubscription server300 to interact withmedia350, such as a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) or a hard drive.Optional video display340 is any type of video display suitable for interacting with a human user of thesubscription server300. Generally,video display340 is a computer monitor or other similar video display.

As discussed further below in conjunction withFIGS. 18 through 22, thememory330 comprises asubscription processing routine1800, matchingprocesses1900,2000,2100 and a communicationflow generation process2200. Generally, thesubscription processing routine1800 processes notification requests received fromapplications110 and determines if they match any subscriptions, using one ormore matching processes1900,2000,2100. In addition, the communicationflow generation process2200 processes the matching subscriptions to generate communication flows that can be provided to a third party for delivery of the subscriptions. The communicationflow generation process2200 also ensures that the recipient of a notification has proper privileges.

In one exemplary implementation, thesubscription server300 provides an API that enablesapplications110 to create notification requests that notify users according to their subscriptions. As discussed further below in conjunction withFIG. 17, to create a notification request, an application (subject to access controls) (i) creates a notification request; (ii) identifies subscribable objects, if any, associated with the requests, e.g., a customer, and (iii) identifies attributes of the notification.

Once a notification request has been created by anapplication110 for subscription processing, thesubscription server300 processes the notification to identify users and generate a communication flow. Generally, as discussed further below in conjunction withFIGS. 18-21, the subscription server300 (i) identifies those subscriptions that are associated with theapplication110 and that also match at least one subscribable object of the request or else have no subscribable objects (i.e., if a subscription has any subscribable objects, at least one of them must match a subscribable object of the request; in addition, the owner of the subscription must have privileges to subscribe to at least one matching subscribable object); (ii) of the subscriptions that match based on subscribable objects or have no subscribable objects, the subscription server matches the attributes of the request to the attributes of the subscriptions (one value of each attribute of a subscription must match the value of the same attribute on the request); and (iii) evaluates the rules of the subscriptions, if any, based on the attributes of the request. All of the rules of a subscription must evaluate to true for a match. The subscriptions that match a request based on subscribable objects (or have no subscribable objects), and which also match based on attributes and rules, match the request and are selected for notification.

Once the subscriptions that match a request have been identified, thesubscription server300 employs a communication flow generation process2200 (FIG. 22) to identify the subscriber and optionally the delegate for the subscription, and includes those users in the communication flow for that request (subject to the privileges of the subscription owner). Specifically, the owner of the subscription must have the privilege to subscribe to a matching subscribable object, and also to notify the subscriber and delegate (if any). Subscriptions that do not have sufficient privileges are not added to the communication flow. Instead, appropriate errors are logged. For example, the subscriber is often the subscription owner, in which case the subscriber can be notified in the communication flow. If, however, the subscriber or delegate is not the owner, then the owner must have sufficient privileges to notify those users, or else an error occurs. The privileges of the subscription are also checked by the self subscription portal when the subscription is created or modified.

It should be noted that for each attribute (e.g., ZIP Code), the notification request can have at most one value (e.g., 07920). However, for a single attribute, a subscription may have any number of values. Both notification requests and subscriptions can have any number of subscribable objects.

For a high volume of requests and a large number of subscriptions, computational efficiency will become an issue in matching notification requests to subscriptions. There are several ways that the matching could be done in practice:

1. First of all, the subscription server could maintain a conventional tree type index on the subscribable object associations of the subscriptions. The subscription server could use this index to match the request to those subscriptions with the same subscribable objects as the request. The subscription server could then further filter the subscriptions based on their attribute values and rules.

2. It may be that some subscriptions have no associated subscribable objects. In this case, the request need only match the attribute values and rules of the subscription, and the approach above will not work. Instead the subscription server could maintain a bitmap index on the attribute values of the subscriptions. The subscription server could use this index to match the request to those subscriptions with the same attribute values as the request. The subscription server could then further filter the subscriptions based on rules.

FIG. 4 illustrates the processing of notification and responses by the notification andresponse system200 in further detail. As shown inFIG. 4, the exemplary notification andresponse system200 can send notifications to users using one ormore media types410, such as via telephone or email in an exemplary implementation, in accordance with user preferences recorded in anotification preferences database405.

Subscription Security

Privileges

Privileges identify what a user can do in thesubscription server300. These privileges are subscription server specific, and are distinct from database or operating system privileges. As shown inFIG. 5 and discussed further below, thesubscription server300 will provide for several types of privileges, including (i) unary privileges, which apply to a user or role; (ii) user privileges, which describe what a user or role can do vis-à-vis another user or application; and (iii) subscribable object privileges, which enable a user or role to subscribe to an object.

Roles

A role is treated as a type of user in thesubscription server300, but is not a person or application. A role can have privileges. Users can have roles, and thereby inherit privileges from those roles. A role can also have other roles, and thereby inherit privileges from those roles. A role cannot initiate a session with thesubscription server300, and thesubscription server300 cannot perform an activity on behalf of a role. A user or role can be granted a user privilege vis-à-vis a role. A role can be specified as the recipient in a subscription or escalation.

Objects

Thesubscription server300 will provide implicit or explicit access controls on the following subscription server objects: attributes; attribute values; requests; request attributes; rules; general rules; subscribable objects; and subscriptions. In other words, when performing an action involving these entities on the behalf of a user or application, thesubscription server300 will apply access controls on those objects.

Object Ownership

Thesubscription server300 will determine object ownership based on the following principles. The owner of a request and its attributes is the requestor (application). The owner of subscriptions, subscribable objects, attributes, and general rules is the creator (which could be an application). The owner of an attribute value is the attribute owner.

Access Controls

Access controls identify what a user can do to an object. Access controls apply to subscribable objects, requests, and other objects. Explicit access controls comprise a ternary relationship between user accounts, objects, and privileges. Access controls can also be implicit through object ownership. Generally, the object owner has all applicable privileges on the object and the object owner can grant and revoke privileges on the object.

A community of interested parties could benefit tremendously from a process that enabled them to be notified only of the events of interest to them. Typically, a publish-subscribe model is used. However, the publish-subscribe paradigm is in direct conflict with another overriding need of many enterprises to preserve the confidentiality of the information being published.

For example, consider a hospital system that needs to notify health care workers about patient events. There are many such possible events, and they could be of interest to many different people. For example, a cardiologist might want to subscribe to events for patients under their care, or public health officials might want to subscribe to cases of a specific disease. And yet, the confidentiality of the information in the notifications is paramount. In addition, it is important to preserve the confidentiality of the patient's existence in the system. For example, the cardiologist might subscribe to the collection of all of her patients as a single entity, or she might subscribe only to specific patients. In the former case, the subscribable object is the collection of the cardiologists patients. In the latter case, the subscribable objects are the individual patients. In the latter case, only people with a need to know would be allowed to see that a patient was available for inclusion in subscriptions. For example, a patient's primary care physician might be able to see and subscribe to the patient, but would not be able to see or subscribe to other patients of the cardiologist, or see or subscribe to the cardiologist's patient collection object.

As discussed further below, confidentiality is preserved through a specific privilege to subscribe that can be applied to subscribable objects. The privilege to subscribe is different from the privilege to create, modify, or delete subscriptions.

In addition to choosing subscribable objects for subscriptions, the creator (owner) of a subscription has the ability to cause other users to be notified about events. Specifically, the owner of a subscription may make another user the subscriber (this is known as automatic subscription), or the owner may delegate a subscription to another user. For example, a supervisor might create subscriptions for his direct reports, or the cardiologist above might delegate her subscription to another physician while she is away on vacation. These capabilities are different from standard publish-subscribe models, since those models only allow users to create subscriptions for themselves.

Since the present invention allows others to be notified, the subscription services of the present invention provide access controls on the ability to notify other users. For example, without this capability, a disgruntled employee, who is about to be fired, could create a subscription for the CEO that causes thousands of notifications per hour to be sent. Instead, a supervisor might have the capability of notifying his direct reports, and the cardiologist might have the capability to notify all of the physicians affiliated with the hospital.

WORKING EXAMPLE

The following example illustrates the workings of thesubscription server300 using a hospital notification system as an example.FIG. 6 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user database600. As shown inFIG. 6, the User Database600 lists the users associated with the exemplary subscription services provided by the present invention for thesubscription server300 and portal170 that host the hospital application. Users identify themselves through their logins, and some of the users (e.g., ham, joann, and yangqian) are actual human users. The user hosp_app is a user that represents the hospital application. Through this user account, the hospital application creates its subscribable objects, attributes, and attribute values, and also generates notification requests. The last four users in the User Database600 (xui_user, xui_admin, hosp_user, hosp_admin) are actually roles. These roles may be assigned to human users, applications or other roles. All users, applications, and roles in the exemplary implementation are configurable; none are hard coded or assumed to exist by the system.

FIG. 7 is a sample table illustrating an exemplaryuser roles database700 that shows role membership of the users and roles. In the exemplary table ofFIG. 7, users ham and joann have the xui_admin role, which is for general administration of the subscription services. User yangqian has the xui_user role, which is a basic role that contains privileges common to all regular users. The hosp_user role is a role for users of the hospital application, and it has the xui_user role. The hosp_admin role is a role for hospital application administrators, and it has the hosp_user role.

FIG. 8 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary privileges database800 that lists a number of the exemplary privileges supported by thesubscription server300. Some of those privileges shown inFIG. 8 are granted on a specific user or subscribable object. Specifically, the privileges “Create Subscription To Application” and “Subscribe To Objects Owned By” apply to a specific application, while the privilege “Notify” applies to a specific user.

Typically, regular users would get most or all of their privileges through roles, which greatly simplifies administration of privileges. A user or role may have more than one role.FIG. 9 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user privileges database900 that shows the privileges for the users and roles in the current example. The xui_admin role has very broad privileges (Create Any, Read Any, Update Any, Delete Any, Subscribe Any, Notify Any, Grant Any) that give administrators the power to modify the system as they wish. For example, an administrator may create user accounts, or delete or modify subscribable objects that belong to an application. Applications typically have more specific privileges. The hosp_app application has all create privileges except Create User, plus Notify Any. The hosp_app application does not require granted privileges to read, update, or delete objects it has created, since creation confers ownership and implicit privileges to read, update, or delete. The hosp_app application probably does not need the Notify Any privilege either, since it does not notify users directly. Instead, the owner of a subscription notifies the subscriber or delegate through the processing of a request by the subscription server. It is the owner of a matching subscription that needs privileges to notify.

FIG. 10 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user-user privileges database1000 that shows the privileges of users and roles that apply to another user or an application. For example, the hosp_user role has the Create Subscriptions To Application privilege with respect to the hosp_app application. This means that user ntandon (Dr. Tandon), who has the hosp_user role, may use the portal to create subscriptions for the hospital application. (“Hospital Application” will appear in the portal on the list of applications to which she can subscribe.) Also, the hosp_admin role has the privilege Subscribe To Objects Owned By with respect to the hosp_app application. This means that the user ptendick, who has the hosp_admin role, may subscribe to any subscribable object owned by the hospital application. Finally, the user ntandon (Dr. Tandon) has the Notify privilege with respect to the user weiss (Dr. Weiss), so Dr. Tandon may delegate her subscriptions to Dr. Weiss, or even create a subscription for which Dr. Weiss is the subscriber.

FIG. 11 is a sample table illustrating anexemplary attributes database1100 that lists the attributes of the hospital application. Specifically, a notification request has an Event Type, a Status, and a Ward, among other attributes.FIG. 12 is a sample table illustrating anattribute values database1200 that lists some possible values for the attributes ofFIG. 11. For example, the attribute Status has values Good, Fair, Serious, and Critical.

The hospital application also has subscribable objects listed in thesubscribable objects database1300 ofFIG. 13. Each subscribable object shown inFIG. 13 has a type, which could be Patient or Patient List. The Patient type includes individual patients, while the Patient List type includes patient lists for doctors and patient lists for clinical trials. For example, there are two Patient List objects, called Dr. Tandon's Patients and Dr. Weiss' Patients.

FIG. 14 is a sample table illustrating an exemplary user-object privileges database1400 that shows the privileges of users and roles that apply to subscribable objects. Dr. Tandon's patients are P. Tendick, J. Ordille, and H. Slye, so she can subscribe to the subscribable objects for those patients, and also to the patient list “Dr. Tandon's Patients.” (The subscribable objects for those patients are distinct entities from the user accounts for those same individuals. For this application, a patient need not be a user. It just happens that the patients in this example are also users.) Dr. Weiss is the primary care physician for J. Ordille, H. Slye, and Q. Yang, but not for P. Tendick, so he can subscribe to patients J. Ordille, H. Slye, and Q. Yang, and also to his own patient list. The reason for having subscribable objects for both patients and patient lists is to make the subscriptions simpler and easier to maintain. For example, Dr. Weiss need not change his Patient List subscriptions as his patient list changes.

Dr. Tandon, a cardiologist, enters the portal170 to create a subscription, and sees that she can subscribe to the hospital application (hosp_app). This is because she has the hosp_user role, which has the privilege Subscribe to Application with respect to the hosp_app application. If she had the Subscribe Any privilege (either directly or through a role), she would see the entire list of applications. Dr. Tandon selects the hospital application, and finds she may subscribe by patient or by patient list. She decides to subscribe by patient list. Because there is a moderate number of Patient List subscribable objects (cardinality medium), the portal170 retrieves the list of all Patient List type subscribable objects owned by hosp_app, then checks to see if ntandon has the Subscribe Any privilege. Since she does not, the portal170 then filters the list on the set of subscribable objects to which user ntandon has the Subscribe To privilege. The portal170 then displays the list, which contains only the item Dr. Tandon's Patients, on the subscription form. Dr. Tandon creates a subscription to Dr. Tandon's Patients, but only for Admitted and Discharged events types. Then, she decides that she also needs to subscribe by patient. She enters the form to subscribe by patient, and on the list of patients to which she can subscribe, she sees J. Ordille, H. Slye, and P. Tendick, but not Q. Yang. She creates a subscription to P. Tendick for an event type of Status Changed. Dr. Tandon (user ntandon) is both the owner and the subscriber for this subscription. There is no delegate at this point.

If there were a large number of Patient List subscribable objects (cardinality large), the portal170 would provide the capability for the user to enter a partial string value, and the portal170 would return a list of matching subscribable objects, e.g., containing the string ‘Tendick’. If ntandon had the Subscribe Any privilege, the portal170 would display the entire list of matching subscribable objects. Otherwise, before displaying the list, the portal170 would then filter the list on the set of subscribable objects to which user ntandon had the Subscribe To privilege. Once the list of matching subscribable objects were displayed, the user could select zero or more to include in the subscription. The user also could enter the subscribable object names directly on the form. Through repeated use of these mechanisms, the user could enter multiple subscribable objects on the form. In any event, on submission of the subscription by the user, the portal170 would check whether the subscribable existed, and also whether the user had appropriate privileges to subscribe to the subscribable objects by the mechanisms described above. If a subscribable object on the subscription did not exist, or if the user did not have sufficient privileges to subscribe to an object on the subscription, the portal170 would display an error and not allow the submission of the subscription.

Dr. Weiss enters the portal to create a subscription, and also finds that he may subscribe by patient or by patient list. He decides to subscribe by patient list, and sees only Dr. Weiss' Patients. He creates a subscription to Dr. Weiss' Patients, but only for Admitted events. If Dr. Weiss tried to subscribe by patient, he would see J. Ordille, H. Slye, and Q. Yang, but not P. Tendick. He could subscribe to one or more patients in a single subscription.

If patient P. Tendick's status were upgraded from serious to fair, the hospital application would create a notification request with the subscribable objects P. Tendick and Dr. Tandon's Patients, with an event type attribute value of Status Changed and a status attribute value of Fair. Dr. Tandon's subscription to “Status Changed” events for P. Tendick would match the new request, but before adding Dr. Tandon (user ntandon) to the communication flow for the request, the subscription server would check to make certain user ntandon had sufficient privileges to subscribe to the P. Tendick object. The subscription server also would check to make sure the owner of the subscription (ntandon) had sufficient privileges to notify the subscriber (also ntandon). In this case, the owner may notify the subscriber, since a user may always notify her self.

Now Dr. Tandon enters the portal170 again, but this time she modifies the subscription to P. Tendick status changes so it is delegated to Dr. Weiss. She does this because she is going on vacation and wants to make sure someone is notified of changes in P. Tendick's status. She specifies the “and” communication flow operator, so both she and Dr. Weiss will be notified. Before allowing Dr. Tandon to submit the delegation, however, thesubscription portal170 checks to make sure Dr. Tandon has sufficient privileges to notify Dr. Weiss. Since user ntandon has the Notify privilege with respect to user weiss, the portal allows Dr. Tandon to submit the delegation.

If patient P. Tendick's status were upgraded from fair to good, the hospital application would create a notification request with the subscribable objects P. Tendick and Dr. Tandon's Patients, with an event type attribute value of “Status Changed” and a status attribute value of Good. Dr. Tandon's subscription to status change events for P. Tendick would again match the new request, but before adding Dr. Tandon and Dr. Weiss to the commflow for the request, the subscription server would check to make certain that user ntandon had sufficient privileges to subscribe to the P. Tendick object. Note that the subscription server only does this for the owner of the subscription, not the subscriber or delegate. The fact that Dr. Weiss does not have sufficient privileges to subscribe to patient P. Tendick is not relevant. The subscription server also checks to make sure the owner of the subscription (ntandon) has sufficient privileges to notify the subscriber and the delegate. As before, Dr. Tandon may notify herself, and she also may notify Dr. Weiss because she has a specific privilege to do so.

The reason for checking privileges when a request is processed by the subscription server is twofold: First of all, thesubscription portal170 is a separate process from thesubscription server300 and should not be trusted by it. In other words, thesubscription server300 must assume that thesubscription portal170 could allow the creation of a subscription with insufficient privileges. Second, privileges might change over time. For example, if patient P. Tendick left Dr. Tandon's care, Dr. Tandon might lose privileges to subscribe to P. Tendick's events, while Dr. Tandon's subscription might continue to exist. Similarly, Dr. Weiss might move to another practice, somehow causing Dr. Tandon to lose her privilege to notify him.

Subscription Portal170

After a user logs in to thesubscription portal170, the portal170 presents a list of applications that the user has access to. The list of applications is obtained from thesubscription server300 and is based on the privilege rules defined in the subscription server300 (and previously provided by the application). The privilege rule states that a particular user can subscribe to messages from thisapplication110.

In addition to the privilege rules, an application must provide a set of attributes as a classification attribute set, that is, a complete list of attributes that can be used to classify information, and users can use these attributes to register their subscriptions. The attributes in the classification set may or may not be part of the data that will be presented to the users. According to one aspect of the invention, an application can specify some of the attributes or attribute sets to be required, in order to limit the amount of data transferred from the application database to thesubscription server300. In other words, when subscribers input rules for their subscriptions, the presence of one of the required attributes or attribute sets is mandatory. For each of those required attributes or attributes sets, a list of optional attributes can be provided, as discussed below in conjunction withFIG. 15.

Another aspect of the invention recognizes that different users or sets of users may have a different view of the data. Thus, different users or sets of users (such as all users having a given role) can select a different required attribute when registering their subscriptions. Thus, the present invention provides a number of different templates that each specify a different required attribute (or set of required attributes) and zero or more corresponding optional attributes. In this manner, different users or sets of users can select a different attribute for their required attribute. For example, in an enterprise setting one group of users, such as users in a customer service organization, may be interested in registering their subscriptions by Company Name, while another group of users, such as users in a on-site technical support organization, may be interested in registering their subscriptions by Company Location.

FIG. 15 is a sample table illustrating an exemplaryattribute template database1500 incorporating features of the present invention. As shown inFIG. 15, each row in theattribute template database1500 corresponds to a different template that defines how users can register their subscriptions, where “FL#” indicates a field location number that identifies a customer location and “LHN#” indicates a legal hierarchy node that identifies an organization entity of a customer (such as a holding company, subsidiary or division). Each column in theattribute template database1500 corresponds to a different exemplary attribute that an application has defined for classification. Each template in theattribute template database1500 identifies a different attribute that can be employed as a required attribute (R). For each template, theattribute template database1500 identifies the corresponding attributes that can be used as optional attributes (O) for the template.

For example,row1510 indicates that the company name is a required attribute. When this required attribute is supplied, values for the optional attributes, severity, status, SEid, source, city, Province/state, Pn/Zip, country, product and region can also be supplied. Another example,row1520 indicates that the combination of city and province/state is required in this case.

For the classification attributes, a list of valid values can be provided by the application. For example, severity codes can be from 1 to 4. But for some attributes, users need to input possible values when they subscribe. Applications must provide some mechanism to validate these values.

Again, after a user logs in to thesubscription portal170, the portal170 presents a list of applications that the user has access to. Next to the application name is a list of the required attributes, which are links to different tables that are generated dynamically according to the data in attribute_map table in thesubscription server300, such as the subscription table1600 shown inFIG. 16. Generally, the first row in the exemplary table1600 identifies the required attribute. All the optional attributes, related to that required attribute, are listed underneath it. So the users can specify what type of notifications they want to receive, such as a required Company attribute with value Company A, and further specify details about the additional requirements that the notification has to meet, such as only high severity cases, or only cases in the United States.

In one exemplary implementation, when a user first logs in, thesubscription portal170 automatically creates a user account for the user in thesubscription server300. Also, a default role can optionally be assigned to this user to satisfy the basic needs of the user with reduced administration efforts. For example, if the default role can satisfy 70% of the users, then 70% of the administration efforts on assigning special roles can be saved.

Required attributes can be either subscribable objects or normal attributes. The benefits for defining subscribable objects is that a privilege rule can be associated with a subscribable object and that it will optimize the filtering process in the subscription server. However, for users, it is totally transparent for those two types of required attributes.

The format of every attribute in the subscription form available to the user, that is either a checkbox, list or search box, is defined by the cardinality table. By specifying the size of the attribute value group in the cardinality table, time is saved, and the trouble of counting the number of entries in the attribute table is avoided. The optimization is critical for some larger applications, and increases the scalability of thesubscription server300 and portal170 and makes the portal170 more user-friendly. Aninterface2700 that presents the attributes based on the cardinality table is discussed further below in conjunction withFIG. 27.

Processes

In the following discussion, it is assumed that a subscription has an owner, a subscriber, and possibly a delegate. The owner and the subscriber are typically the same. If they aren't the same, this is called automatic subscription. For a subscription to be added to the communication flow for a request, the owner must have privileges to notify the subscriber and the delegate (if any). Someone may always notify themselves, so if the subscriber is the owner, then the owner has sufficient privileges to notify the subscriber. If the subscriber is not the owner, the owner may also have the blanket privilege to notify anyone, or the privilege to notify the specific subscriber or delegate. For subscription with a delegate, the delegate is notified in addition to or instead of the subscriber.

FIG. 17 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of arequest creation process1700, implemented by one ormore applications110 to create notification requests. As shown inFIG. 17, therequest creation process1700 initially establishes a database connection duringstep1710 to log the necessary notification requests. Thereafter, a test is performed duringstep1715 to determine if there are additional requests to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1715 that there are additional requests to be processed, then a notification request is created duringstep1720.

A further test is performed duringstep1725 to determine if there are additional subscribable objects to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1725 that there are additional objects to be processed, then one or more subscribable object records are created duringstep1730, until all the objects have been processed. Once it is determined duringstep1725 that there are no additional objects to be processed, then program control proceeds to step1735.

A further test is performed duringstep1735 to determine if there are additional attributes within the request to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1735 that there are additional attributes to be processed, then the values for the attributes are set duringstep1740, until all the attributes have been processed. Once it is determined duringstep1735 that there are no additional attributes to be processed, then program control proceeds to step1745.

A further test is performed duringstep1745 to determine if there are additional media, such as text and voice, to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1745 that there are additional media to be processed, then the notification content for the media is added duringstep1750, until all the media types have been processed. Once it is determined duringstep1745 that there are no additional media types to be processed, then the database transaction is committed duringstep1760 and program control returns to step1715.

Once it is determined duringstep1715 that there are no additional requests to be processed, then program control proceeds to step1780 where the database connection is closed.

FIG. 18 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of asubscription processing routine1800, implemented by thesubscription server300 ofFIG. 3. As shown inFIG. 18, thesubscription processing routine1800 initially creates a database connection duringstep1810 and retrieves the newly created request records duringstep1820.

A test is performed duringstep1825 to determine if there are additional requests to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1825 that there are additional requests to be processed, then the next request record is retrieved duringstep1830.

As discussed further below in conjunction withFIG. 19, amatching process1900 is executed duringstep1840 to identify those subscriptions with subscribable objects. As discussed further below in conjunction withFIG. 20, amatching process2000 is executed duringstep1850 to identify those subscriptions with no subscribable objects.

A test is performed duringstep1855 to determine if there are additional subscriptions to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1855 that there are additional subscriptions to be processed, then the subscriber or delegate is added to the communication flow being generated duringstep1860, until all subscriptions have been processed. Once it is determined duringstep1855 that all subscriptions have been processed, program flow proceeds to step1865.

A further test is performed duringstep1865 to determine if there are additional media, such as text and voice, to be processed. If it is determined duringstep1865 that there are additional media to be processed, then the notification content for the media is added duringstep1870, until all the media types have been processed. Once it is determined duringstep1865 that there are no additional media types to be processed, then a request document is generated duringstep1875. The request is then submitted to the notification andresponse system200 duringstep1880 and the transaction is committed duringstep1885. Once it is determined duringstep1825 that there are no additional requests to be processed, then the database connection is closed duringstep1890.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of amatching process1900 that identifies those subscriptions with subscribable objects. As indicated above, thematching process1900 is invoked by thesubscription processing routine1800 duringstep1840. As shown inFIG. 19, thematching process1900 initially receives a request identifier duringstep1910 as input from the callingsubscription processing routine1800. The identifier is used duringstep1920 to retrieve the subscribable objects associated with the request.

A test is performed duringstep1925 to determine if there are additional subscribable objects to process. If it is determined duringstep1925 that there are additional subscribable objects to process, then the next subscribable object is obtained duringstep1930. The subscriptions that have at least one matching object are then retrieved duringstep1940.

A further test is performed duringstep1945 to determine if there are additional subscriptions to process. If it is determined duringstep1945 that there are additional subscriptions to process, then the next subscription is obtained duringstep1950. A test is performed duringstep1955 to determine if any attributes of the subscription matches. It is noted that the attribute value for a request must match one specified attribute for a subscription, if the value is specified in the subscription. The subscription is added duringstep1960 to the matching set and program control returns to step1945.

Once it is determined duringstep1945 that there are no additional subscriptions to process, then program control returns to step1925. Once it is determined duringstep1925 that there are no additional subscribable objects to process, then the matching subscriptions are output duringstep1970.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of amatching process2000 that employs a first approach to identify those subscriptions with no subscribable objects. As indicated above, thematching process2000 is invoked by thesubscription processing routine1800 duringstep1850. As shown inFIG. 20, thematching process2000 initially receives a request identifier duringstep2010 as input from the callingsubscription processing routine1800. All subscriptions are retrieved duringstep2015.

A test is performed duringstep2020 to determine if there are additional subscriptions to process. If it is determined duringstep2020 that there are additional subscriptions to process, then the next subscriptions is obtained duringstep2030. A test is performed duringstep2035 to determine if any attributes of the subscription matches. It is noted that the attribute value for a request must match one specified attribute for a subscription, if the value is specified in the subscription. The subscription is added duringstep2040 to the matching set and program control returns to step2020.

Once it is determined duringstep2020 that there are no additional subscriptions to process, then the matching subscriptions are output duringstep2045.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of amatching process2100 that employs a second approach to identify those subscriptions with no subscribable objects. As indicated above, thematching process2100 is optionally invoked by thesubscription processing routine1800 duringstep1850. As shown inFIG. 21, thematching process2100 initially receives a request identifier duringstep2110 as input from the callingsubscription processing routine1800.

A search for candidate subscriptions is performed duringstep2120, based on relevance (where relevance is, for example, the number of attribute value matches). The number of attributes specified for the candidates is calculated duringstep2130, a filter is applied to the subscriptions duringstep2140 with the number of attributes equal to the relevance measure. The matching subscriptions are output duringstep2150.

In the following discussion, it is assumed that the communication flow for a request (as generated by the communication flow generation process2200) consists of zero or more subexpressions conjoined by the operator AND. Each subexpression corresponds to a matching subscription, and contains one or two recipients (the subscriber and/or the delegate). The notification andresponse system200 evaluates the communication flow by attempting to satisfy each subexpression. There are three possible delegation options:

• • NOT—Notify the delegate instead of the subscriber
  • AND—Notify the delegate and the subscriber
  • RACES—Attempt to notify both the delegate and the subscriber until one of them responds

For example, the communication flow for a request having four matching subscriptions may be expressed as:

• • (kevin) AND (dave) AND (ham RACES joann) AND (pat AND qian)
    where kevin is a subscriber without a delegate, dave is delegate with NOT (notify the delegate instead of the subscriber); the third expression is an example of a delegation with RACES; and the fourth expression is an example of a delegation with AND.

FIG. 22 is a flow chart describing an exemplary implementation of a communicationflow generation process2200 implemented by thesubscription server300 ofFIG. 3. As shown inFIG. 22, the communicationflow generation process2200 initially receives a set of matching subscriptions as input during step2105. A test is performed duringstep2110 to determine if there are additional subscriptions to be processed. The system processes the subscriptions in the list sequentially, adding a communication flow subexpression for each subscription, until there are no more subscriptions to process. Each communication flow subexpression is typically enclosed in parentheses. If it is determined duringstep2210 that there are additional subscriptions to be processed, then the next subscription is obtained duringstep2215.

A further test is performed duringstep2220 to determine if the user associated with the subscription has the appropriate privileges. Generally, the owner of subscription must have privileges to subscribe to an object on the request and to notify the subscriber and delegate. If it is determined duringstep2220 that user associated with the subscription does not have the appropriate privileges, then an error is logged duringstep2222. Each type of error (no object privilege, no notify privilege) can be logged separately for each subscription.

If it is determined duringstep2220 that user associated with the subscription has the appropriate privileges, then a further test is performed duringstep2225 to determine if the current subscription is the first subscription being added to the communication flow. The exemplary system conjoins the communication flow subexpressions for the subscription using the AND operator, so the AND operator must be appended to the commflow before adding subsequent terms.

If it is determined duringstep2225 that the current subscription is the first subscription being added to the communication flow, then a new communication flow subexpression is started duringstep2230. Each subexpression can have a term for the subscriber or a term for the delegate, or both. At this step, only the opening (left) parenthesis is provided. If, however, it is determined duringstep2225 that the current subscription is not the first subscription being added to the communication flow, then the AND operator is appended to the communication flow duringstep2228.

A further test is performed duringstep2235 to determine if the user associated with the subscription has a delegate. This decision indicates whether to add the delegate term to the subexpression for the subscription. If it is determined duringstep2235 that the user associated with the subscription has a delegate, then the delegate is added to the subexpression duringstep2240. Another test is performed duringstep2245 to determine if the delegation is expressed using the NOT option (notify the delegate instead of the subscriber). This decision thus indicates whether to substitute the delegate for the subscriber (skip adding a term for the subscriber), or include both. If it is determined duringstep2245 that the delegation is expressed using the NOT option, then program control proceeds to step2270, below. If, however, it is determined duringstep2245 that the delegation is not expressed using the NOT option, then another test is performed duringstep2250 to determine if the delegation is expressed using the RACES option (attempt to notify both the delegate and the subscriber until one of them responds). This decision thus indicates whether to use the RACES operator (attempt to notify both the delegate and the subscriber until one of them responds) or the AND operator (attempt to notify each regardless of how the other responds).

If it is determined duringstep2250 that the delegation is expressed using the RACES option, then RACES is added to the subexpression duringstep2255. If, however, it is determined duringstep2250 that the delegation is not expressed using the RACES option, then AND is added to the subexpression duringstep2260 before proceeding to step2265. If it was determined duringstep2235 that the user associated with the subscription does not have a delegate, then the subscriber is added to the subexpression duringstep2265. At this point, the closing (right) parenthesis of the subexpression is added to the subexpression.

A further test is performed duringstep2270 to determine if the subscription contains one or more escalations. Escalations for subscriptions can be retrieved from another table. An escalation for a subscription causes the user associated with the escalation to be notified if neither the subscriber nor the delegate (if applicable) responds. Thesubscription server300 also optionally provides the ability to register to receive escalations. Escalations are different from subscriptions in that while subscriptions specify the features of a request that make it of interest, escalations describe ways of dealing with exceptional circumstances. In other words, escalations provide a way of handling things about which someone should be notified, but for some reason no one is. Escalations aren't subscriptions, but they can be something you can subscribe to. An escalation could be based on the failure of notification of the subscriber in a subscription (in which case the escalation relates to a specific person), or it could be based on the failure to notify anyone for a request.

If it is determined duringstep2270 that the subscription contains one or more escalations, then the escalation term is added to the subexpression duringstep2275. The escalation term contains one term for each escalation record, with the delay for the individual escalation represented by the AFTER operator. The individual escalation terms are conjoined by the AND or RACES operator within the overall escalation term, which is enclosed in parentheses. The overall escalation term for all subscription escalations is conjoined with the existing subexpression using the AND or RACES operator. The entire subexpression for the subscription, including the escalation term, is then enclosed in parentheses and appended to the commflow for the request.

If it is determined duringstep2270 that the subscription does not contain one or more escalations, then program control proceeds directly to step2280, where the subexpression is added to the communication flow.

Once it is determined duringstep2210 that there are no additional subscriptions to be processed, then a further test is performed duringstep2285 to determine if the subscribable objects have escalations. Escalations for the subscribable objects of the request can be retrieved from another table. An escalation for a subscribable object causes the user associated with the escalation to be notified if no one responds to a notification request with that object. If it is determined duringstep2285 that the subscribable objects have escalations, then the escalation term is added to the communication flow duringstep2290. The escalation term contains one term for each escalation record for each subscribable object on the request, with the delay for the individual escalation represented by the AFTER operator. The individual escalation terms are conjoined by the AND or RACES operator within the overall escalation term, which is enclosed in parentheses. The overall escalation term for all subscribable object escalations is conjoined with the existing commflow using the AND or RACES operator. Finally, the communication flow string is output duringstep2295.

Third Party Subscription Delivery

As previously indicated, thesubscription server300 optionally provides the communication flows generated by the communicationflow generation process2200 to a third party, such as the notification andresponse system200, for delivery to end users. As previously indicated, theapplication110 sends a request proposal to thesubscription server300 that includes the Notification and Response System Request to be made, specified in XML or another appropriate specification language such as the Web Services Description Language (WSDL).

The XML for the Notification and Response System Request includes a line with a special string that marks where the communication flow needs to be inserted, as follows:

• • <target>%%COMMUNICATION_FLOW%%</target>
    The <target> element is used to specify the communication flow in the Request XML specification and thesubscription server300 replaces the string “%%COMMUNICATION_FLOW%%” with a generated communication flow expression.

As long as the special string to be replaced is unique in all specifications, it is not even necessary for thesubscription server300 to know that the field for the insertion is <target> or that the request specification is in XML. This technique works for the specification of any downstream service.

Exemplary Communication Flows for Escalation

To escalate for a single person not responding, say joann not responding, the communication flow would be expressed as:

• • joann races dave after +04:00
    Thus, if joann doesn't answer in within 4 hours, dave is also contacted. A response from one of them completes the entire communication flow. Similarly, to escalate on a delegation, the communication flows would be expressed as:
  • :Full delegation of joann to ham becomes:
  • ham races dave after +04:00
  • Shared delegation of joann to joann, ham becomes:
  • (joann races ham) races dave after +04:00
  • Parallel delegation of joann to joann, ham becomes:
  • (joann and ham) races dave after +04:00

In the last case, joann and ham must both respond before the four hours have passed to prevent the escalation. This last case assumes commflows in accordance with Version 2.5 of the Xui™ system and that users can only answer “Yes” and not “No” to the notification. Handling “No” is more complicated and requires V3.0 communication flows.

If the initial person contacted should continue to be contacted even if the escalated person responds, then the above examples are changed to have the following form:

• • joann and not dave after +04:00

To escalate for a group, any one of whom can answer to prevent the escalation, a V3.0 communication flow is needed.

Assume that you don't want the answer from one member of the group to cancel the notifications to the other members of the group, and that individuals can only answer “Yes” and not “No” to the notification. The group is ham, dave, joann and the escalation is to pat. The communication flow may be expressed as follows:

• • CONSULT {ham, dave, joann} races pat after +04:00
    It is noted that “CONSULT” is a parallel list operator that evaluates all of its children and waits for one of them to result in a TRUE or FALSE. This result is returned as the value of the operator, but the remaining operands are placed OUT-OF-BAND so that they can continue operation but have no affect on the outcome of the overall expression. They may additionally be tagged with an OUTOFBAND label. CONSULT evaluates to NORESULT until one of its children has evaluated to a truth-value of TRUE or FALSE, it then returns that result placing the rest of its children OUT-OF-BAND. If all of its children result in a truth-value of MAYBE, then this operator results in MAYBE.

If at least one member in the consult answers then Pat never receives the escalation. If Pat receives the escalation and answers, then all messages to the group in CONSULT are cancelled. This parallels the technique above for individuals and does not use the limitation that the recipients can't answer “No.”

If you want the group to continue to be notified even if the escalated person answers, then the communication flow is expressed as follows:

• • CONSULT {ham, dave, joann} and NOT pat after +04:00
    This communication flow uses the assumption that people cannot answer “No.”

For a more detailed discussion of the generation and evaluation of communication flows, see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/184,236, filed Jun. 26, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Notification and Response;” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/184,325, filed Jun. 26, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Automatic Notification and Response Based on Communication Flow Expressions,” each incorporated by reference herein.

Exemplary User Interfaces

FIG. 23 illustrates anexemplary user interface2300 that allows a user to review one or more pending requests. In the example shown inFIG. 23, the request has three associated answers in asection2310. Two answers have associatedaudio recordings2315 and2320. According to one aspect of the present invention, the various users that have received the subscription request can see those other users who have responded (or all optionally users who received the request). In this manner, an ad-hoc community is created that allows the users to, for example, directly consult one another, if needed. Details of the request are included insection2320. In other words, since this group of users have received the same request, that share some common interest associated with the request.

In addition, theexemplary user interface2300 includes the following three questions insection2330 that allows a user to indicate whether they will take responsibility for the request:

• • Yes, I take responsibility for this;
  • No, I don't take responsibility for this case, but will follow its progress; or
  • No, I don't take responsibility for this case.

FIG. 24 illustrates anexemplary user interface2400 that allows a user to enter, update or otherwise access subscriptions. In the example shown inFIG. 24, theuser interface2400 provides afirst section2410 that allows a user to define notification preferences, such as points of contact and time profiles. In addition, theuser interface2400 includes asection2420 that allows a user to register subscriptions based on one or more different subscribable objects (i.e., those attributes identified as required attributes in the template database1500 (FIG. 15).

FIG. 25 illustrates anexemplary user interface2500 that allows users to view, update or delete their notification profiles. In the example shown inFIG. 25, a user has established notification profiles for 24×7, alarm setup and routine.FIG. 26 illustrates anexemplary user interface2600 that allows users to enter a new notification profile. In the example shown inFIG. 26, a user can specify parameters insection2610 for an initial notification and insection2620 for a reminder.

FIG. 27 illustrates anexemplary user interface2700 that allows a user to subscribe to notifications. In the example shown inFIG. 27, the user is registering to receive subscriptions based on FL. The user enters the desired FL number(s) infield2720, optionally with the assistance of a search tool2710 (for example, that lists all FL numbers having a prefix of a given size as the user enters the prefix). The entry infield2720 is an example of an attribute having a large cardinality, as the number of possible values is too large to present the user with all the FL options in theinterface2700. The case source, message type andseverity fields2730,2740,2770 are examples of attributes having a small cardinality, as the number of possible values is small and all the options can be presented to the user at the same time in theinterface2700, for example, using a check box. The Product and Product Family fields2750,2760 are examples of attributes having a medium cardinality, as the number of possible values is between the small set and the large set, and all the options can be presented to the user in theinterface2700, for example, using a scroll list.

FIG. 28 illustrates anexemplary user interface2800 that presents a list of subscriptions to the corresponding user. In the example shown inFIG. 28, the user is provided withcorresponding buttons2810,2820,2830 for each subscription to turn off, delegate or delete the subscription, respectively. In addition, abutton2840 is optionally provided to allow the user to specify the appropriate notification profile to employ for the subscription.

System and Article of Manufacture Details

As is known in the art, the methods and apparatus discussed herein may be distributed as an article of manufacture that itself comprises a computer readable medium having computer readable code means embodied thereon. The computer readable program code means is operable, in conjunction with a computer system, to carry out all or some of the steps to perform the methods or create the apparatuses discussed herein. The computer readable medium may be a recordable medium (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, compact disks, or memory cards) or may be a transmission medium (e.g., a network comprising fiber-optics, the world-wide web, cables, or a wireless channel using time-division multiple access, code-division multiple access, or other radio-frequency channel). Any medium known or developed that can store information suitable for use with a computer system may be used. The computer-readable code means is any mechanism for allowing a computer to read instructions and data, such as magnetic variations on a magnetic media or height variations on the surface of a compact disk.

The computer systems and servers described herein each contain a memory that will configure associated processors to implement the methods, steps, and functions disclosed herein. The memories could be distributed or local and the processors could be distributed or singular. The memories could be implemented as an electrical, magnetic or optical memory, or any combination of these or other types of storage devices. Moreover, the term “memory” should be construed broadly enough to encompass any information able to be read from or written to an address in the addressable space accessed by an associated processor. With this definition, information on a network is still within a memory because the associated processor can retrieve the information from the network.

It is to be understood that the embodiments and variations shown and described herein are merely illustrative of the principles of this invention and that various modifications may be implemented by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.

Claims (15)

We claim:

1. A method of notifying one or more users of information, the method comprising:

building subscribable objects to provide to one or more registered recipients, wherein the registered recipients register their interests with a subscription server through a subscription portal that enable registered recipients to create, modify, and delete interests, wherein each of the subscribable objects is built based upon one or more predefined templates, and wherein each the predefined templates identifies required attributes and optional attributes corresponding to roles assigned to the registered recipients;

receiving, at a subscription server, a notification request, wherein the notification request comprises a subscribable object and a notification;

identifying, at the subscription server, at least one recipient of the notification;

creating, at the subscription server, a communication flow expression for the notification request, wherein the communication flow expression comprises an identifier of the at least one registered recipient and at least one condition for a transmission of the notification;

matching the subscribable object of the notification with at least one subscribable object of a subscription,

wherein the at least one recipient is assigned to at least one role,

wherein the at least one role identifies at least one privilege, and

wherein the at least one privilege permits the at least one role to subscribe to the at least one subscribable object; and

transmitting, from the subscription server, the communication flow expression and the notification request to a notification and response system, wherein the notification and response system executes the communication flow expression.

2. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising identifying the first recipient by matching an attribute identified in the notification request to the subscription information for the first recipient.

3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the notification is transmitted to a recipient who is different from the first recipient.

4. The method ofclaim 1, wherein

the notification and response system is distinct from the subscription server,

and wherein the transmitting step further comprises transmitting the notification in accordance with at least one instruction.

5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein a first communication flow subexpression is added if a sender of the notification request has privileges that permit the sender to notify a first recipient.

6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein a first communication flow subexpression is added if a first recipient has privileges that permit the first recipient to receive the notification.

7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein subscription information for a first recipient identifies a characteristic of the notification request.

8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein subscription information for a first recipient identifies a condition to be met in order for a notification request to be matched with the first recipient.

9. A system for notifying one or more users of information, the system comprising:

a processor;

a memory for storing instructions that when executed cause the processor to:

building subscribable objects to provide to one or more registered recipients, wherein the registered recipients register their interests with a subscription server through a subscription portal that enable registered recipients to create, modify, and delete interests, wherein each of the subscribable objects is built based upon one or more predefined templates, and wherein each the predefined templates identifies required attributes and optional attributes corresponding to roles assigned to the recipients;

receive, at a subscription server, a notification request, wherein the notification request includes a subscribable object and a notification;

identify, at the subscription server, at least one recipient of the notification;

creating, at the subscription server, a communication flow expression for the notification request, wherein the communication flow expression comprises an identifier of the at least one recipient and at least one condition for a transmission of the notification;

matching the subscribable object of the notification with at least one subscribable object of a subscription,

wherein the at least one registered recipient is assigned to at least one role,

wherein the at least one role identifies at least one privilege, and

wherein the at least one privilege permits the at least one role to subscribe to the at least one subscribable object; and

transmitting, from the subscription server, the communication flow expression and the notification request to a notification and response system, wherein the notification and response system executes the communication flow expression.

10. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the notification is transmitted to a person other than a first recipient.

11. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the notification is transmitted if a first recipient has privileges that permit the first recipient to receive the notification.

12. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the notification is transmitted if a sender of the notification request has privileges that permit the sender to notify a first recipient.

13. The system ofclaim 9, wherein subscription information for a first recipient identifies a characteristic of the notification request.

14. The system ofclaim 9, wherein subscription information for a first recipient identifies a condition to be met in order for the notification request to be matched with the first recipient.

15. The system ofclaim 9, wherein the processor further identifies a first recipient by matching an attribute identified in the notification request to subscription information for the first recipient.

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